Collaboration beer.

Collaboration beer.

Collaboration beer. Two words, two (or more) breweries, one exciting product for both brewers and drinkers alike.

Collaboration beer. Two words, two (or more) breweries, one exciting product for both brewers and drinkers alike.

Let’s kick this off with a bit of an explanation as to why, in my opinion, collaborative brews are fantastic. I have done two separate collaborations down at the Four Thieves in a fairly quick time scale. One was the ‘Thieving Monk’, a Citra Pils, brewed with Northern Monk Brewing Co from Leeds. The other is a Coffee Porter, brewed with our awesome neighbours and friends, Sambrooks Brewery, which is almost ready to come out of the tank.

To me, collaborations are a way of combining the brewing methods and styles of both brewers involved. Brewers are renowned for having their own way of doing things in a brewery, so when you get two together, you find a middle ground on all of these processes and learn a new way for yourself. On top of that, the recipe typically starts as the host-brewers idea before many discussions so that both brewers are happy with what they are about to brew.

For Thieving Monk, Brian and I had many discussions about the malt to be used, as we both had different ideas. Thankfully he was crashing at my place, so we were able to make changes throughout the night, over a few beers of course!

The Coffee Porter was quite an interesting one to put together. We knew that we wanted to use some really good coffee, so we turned to Climpsons up in Hackney. We went up to do a coffee tasting at their arch in London Fields, and it was an eye opener to say the least, even for someone like me who considers coffee to be an important food group (the others being meat, cheese, beer, gin and whiskey)! With so many amazing blends to choose from, we went with Sasaba from Ethiopia, which gave off a raspberry flavour. Again, the recipe changed to incorporate that additional flavour.

We had a lot of fun on those two collab brews, especially since both Brian from Northern Monk and Sean from Sambrooks were already good mates of mine. Lots of techniques shared, beers enjoyed, and total nonsense talked as the post brewday celebrations kicked in. It can be a tough life sometimes….

That’s all for now, be sure to visit our brewpubs and see what we have been getting up to.